October 22, 2025 • 52 mins
Happy Planet Wednesday!
If you have ever wanted to lift the veil on New England's mysterious working waterfront, this is the podcast for you. Our guest today is Bill Gerencer, a veteran of 40+ years on the New England Working Waterfront.
Bill served as lobsterman commercial fisherman, fish buyer, salesperson, corporate trainer, fisheries management advisor, and in retirement, a part-time oyster farmer. I have known Bill for years as he used to buy oysters from me on behalf of Boston-based Foley Fish, when it was still a century-old, family-run business.
Bill has recently written a candid memoir titled, Working Waterfront, a Fish Tale. With humour and insight, it dives into everything from near-death experiences on fishing boats to Seaport bar brawls to regulating the fisheries. The tone is Hemmingway-esque, straightforward but soulful. Each chapter ends with a fittingly rough-and-ready seafood recipe.
Listen on Apple , Spotify, our website, or pretty much anywhere you listen to podcasts!
I'd like to thank our sponsors:
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
ABIGAIL (00:00):
Welcome to the podcast where we celebrate innovation
for a happy planet.
I am your host, Abigail Carroll.
If you have ever wanted to liftthe veil on New England's
mysterious working waterfront,this is the podcast for you.
Our guest today is Bill er, aveteran of 40 plus years on the
New England Working Waterfront.
(00:20):
Bill served as lobstermancommercial fishermen, fish
buyer, salesperson, corporatetrainer, fisheries management
advisor, and in retirement, apart-time oyster farmer.
I have known Bill for years ashe used to buy oysters from me
back in the day.
Bill has recently written amemoir called Working
Waterfront, a Fishtail withhumor and insight.
(00:42):
It dives into everything fromnear-death experiences while
fishing to bar brawls andpolicymaking.
The tone is Hemingway ask.
He doesn't mince words, and hetells it like he sees it.
Each chapter ends with afittingly, rough and ready
seafood recipe.
I love this book because itprovides unparalleled personal
(01:04):
insights into the evolvinglandscape of our fisheries and
marine ecosystem, both on andoff the water.
But let's hear it from Bill.
welcome to the podcast, bill.
BILL (01:19):
Well, thank you.
Thanks for inviting me and I'mreally honored to be here.
ABIGAIL (01:23):
Well, it's a delight.
Just a little backgroundinformation.
I know you from the time when Iwas an oyster farmer and you
were my buyer at one point.
And now we've both moved on fromthose jobs.
I'm interested to know why youwrote this book.
BILL (01:40):
The shorter answer is 'cause I had to.
ABIGAIL (01:42):
Hmm.
BILL (01:42):
You know, I thought about writing books over the years and
on this or that, and I never gotpast the first line, you know,
something stupid, like it was adark and stormy night, and that
was it.
But when I got close toretirement, I thought, geez, I
know exactly what to writeabout, and I was compelled to
write it.
So I just felt really stronglythat I had a book in me and I
wanted to try and write it whenI retired.
(02:04):
And my, my goal was to retireand do nothing but write.
It didn't work out that way, buteventually it, it all came to
me.
And, and the process wasinteresting too.
ABIGAIL (02:14):
Well, you have a very interesting perspective to give
on the working waterfrontbecause you were a fisherman,
you were a fish dealer.
You were on the board of thefish exchange in Portland you've
worked on oyster farms, you'vebeen in policy making, tell me
how all of this work together tokind of shape your view that you
(02:37):
communicate through the book.
BILL (02:40):
You know, it all kind of happened by accident.
I didn't have this plan.
Here's what I'm gonna do.
It's just I, I started as afisherman and got really hooked
on quality at sea, which led meto Foley Fish and the Portland
Fish Auction as a buyer forthem.
And I was passionate about theauction, you know, watching it
work.
And at one time I was doing'emall at once.
(03:03):
I was, I was going to fisherymanagement meetings, I was going
to PFE board meetings.
I was cooking at Fridays at theSt.
Vincent's Soup Kitchen and.
I spent a lot of timevolunteering and not making
money, but I don't regret any ofthat.
I, I just, I met a lot of greatpeople.
I learned an awful lot fromquite a few of those people.
(03:24):
So it, it kind of, you know,towards the end of it, I
thought, gee, I, I'm, I kind ofknow a couple things about this
thing that I've been doing withmy life, and that helped with
the writing.
ABIGAIL (03:36):
Well, I think that's what's so astonishing is that,
you've got these stories fromthe bar brawls on the working
waterfront to to reallyhigh-end, perspective of trying
to create policy and,interacting with Noah.
And then you have this reallygreat ability to tell a story
(03:58):
and it's, it's not overly, youknow, worked.
The writing is really fluid,it's natural.
I hear Bill in it.
I just kept turning pages.
You are in a very special placeit seems to me to be writing
this book.
And it's, I think it's animportant time.
BILL (04:17):
I was reading two authors while I was writing because in,
a movable feast by Hemingway.
He said, you have to write, Ihave to read in order to write.
And so my two authors were awoman named Jill Connor Brown,
who wrote a series of comedybooks called The Sweet Potato
Queens of Jackson, Mississippi.
And it was a hoot.
And a French suggested itbecause she ended every chapter
(04:38):
with a recipe.
And so I copied that and Icopied a little bit of her
snarky voice.
And I was also reading AnthonyBourdain, not because I want to
be Anthony Bourdain, but becauseI loved his voice and the way he
wrote and the way he spoke tothe reader.
And so between the two of them,you know, I'd write some, I'd
pick up a book and read it.
And I, I felt bad about Anthonybecause as I got through his
(05:01):
third book, I, which I believewas called Medium Raw, it
occurred to me that, you know,how did nobody see his suicide
coming?
You could see the darknesscreeping in as he wrote
successive books and the, andthe sort of self loathing and
it.
Shouldn't have been there.
'cause he was, he was such ahero to so many of us.
ABIGAIL (05:19):
Well, it's funny you mentioned Hemingway,'cause
Hemingway kept popping in myhead as I was reading and just
that raw directness and, andsome of the subject matter.
Again, getting down into thegrit of the life on the boats
and the working waterfront.
I wanna hear a little bit moreabout the early days on the
working waterfront.
(05:41):
'cause you have some stories of,you know, rough times in the
bars.
Is it different today?
I don't mean those specificplaces.
Portland's been gentrified forsure.
But is the working waterfrontstill a rough place or has that
evolved with everything else?
BILL (05:58):
Honestly, I think a lot of it's evolved.
I was in Fulton Fish Market acouple of days ago early in the
morning, and that's not theplace it was, you know, it's up
in Hunts Point in a bigrefrigerated building and not
down in, on South Street underthe the, the Brooklyn Bridge
and, you know, the groundcovered with a inch of sludge
and, and kind of a rough andtumble place.
(06:20):
You know, my mother grew up inBrooklyn and there was an Irish
guy, and she was Irish, an Irishguy in her neighborhood that
used to work in Fulton.
He had his own company and shesaid he used to come home,
thumped up all the time.
And I talked to some friends whowere Irish in the new Fulton
Fish Market, and they were like,yeah, that was the old days.
None of that happens anymore.
There was a time in New Bedford,for instance, where the heroin
(06:41):
dealers used to catch the lineswhen the scallop boats were
coming back in.
'cause their customers had justarrived home and they're gonna
have a boatload of money.
But nowadays fishing boats willbreathalyze you or drug test you
and, and there's so much moneyto be made on some of these
endeavors.
And they don't want, you know,bombs, they want professionals.
And it, you know, my early daysI was a dope.
(07:04):
I, I was an idiot.
I was kind of a, a buttheadrunning around the waterfront
and, you know, and it woke, Iwoke up to the idea that most of
these guys like lobstermenaren't drinking in bars all the
time.
And, and you know, not partying.
And I, I was only home for acouple days at a time when I was
ground fishing.
And it occurred to me, geez, ifI spend my two days home in the
(07:25):
bar.
If I eventually quit groundfishing, I'm gonna associate
being on shore with drinking.
And what kind of life is thatgonna be?
So not just drinking, but beingdrunk.
So I, I spent trip after trip ofjust not even drinking because
you, you were clean and soberoffshore.
Most of us were.
There were a couple weren't.
I documented a growth processtoo, and it was more than just,,
(07:46):
learning how to be a citizen anda decent person.
But there was a spiritualcomponent to it too, because I
read all these books like FarleyMoat and James Clavell when I
was fishing, and then I readthe, just for the heck of it, I
read the Bible cover to cover.
And that brought me to otherauthors like Dan Millman and a
book called A Course inMiracles.
(08:07):
And, you know, a bunch ofdifferent people like Sojourner
Truth and some of the Easternphilosophers and.
Who, I'm sorry I can't rememberright now, but, so I was always
kind of exploring that while Iwas going through all this.
It was a sort of a, so there'sa, if you pardon the pun, an
undercurrent of spirituality inthe book as well, and
ABIGAIL (08:29):
I think that definitely comes across.
I think you talk a lot about thefamily virtues of hard work and
honesty that that were bestowedon you and how that helped shape
your career, but your ownpersonal growth out there and
struggling with temptation ofbeing in the bars and trying to
make right decisions when noteverybody around you is making
(08:50):
the right decisions.
I thought it was a beautifulstory and in the context of this
changing framework of a fishery.
BILL (08:58):
yeah, it's a fishery that's been struggling to become
more sustainable because for.
of years.
Fishing was just fishing.
It was sort of like, based onthe right of free plunder, if
you could get out there and takesomething, then it was yours to
take.
And, and there was never anythought that we could ever, put
the stalks in jeopardy.
(09:19):
And then that started happeningin the late eighties and early
nineties, and National MarineFisheries Service started
sounding the alarm.
And a lot of fishermen didn'tbelieve it.
And then you could see it startto happen.
I was on the ground fishadvisory panel for 20 years, and
we struggled with an industrythat needed to become more
sustainable and, excuse me, butand, and that, that was sort of
(09:47):
soul sucking, energy draininglong meetings.
You know, I'm looking around inthe wall trying to find the vent
that's sucking out everybody'senergy and joy but that's
democracy, isn't it?
It's frustrating.
It's everybody has to have anopinion and everybody gets to
share it, and that's fine.
'cause that's how you arrive atgood outcomes as opposed to, you
(10:07):
know, we're gonna go down onepath and listen to one mind.
If you bring in lots ofdifferent voices, even voices
that you, you severely disagreewith, there's still something in
there.
And so if you pay attention toit, you, you know, we actually
did some really good things inspite of it all.
And the stalks themselves, whilethe species mix isn't the same,
(10:28):
because you can't depleteeverything and then expect
everything to reach its pre,previous equilibrium.
The aggregate species mix inthe, the Gulf of Maine and
George's bank is as big as it'sever been.
There's, there's no questionthat the, the stock in general,
the stocks in general, are fullyrecovered now.
There's still some that are,that are shy, but that's
(10:49):
because, not because ofanything, you know, fishing
mortality, it's because ofnatural mortality and the, the
struggle to compete for the ecospace with other species that,
you know, jump, you know, filledthe empty space quicker.
And so they have to, you know,20 years we may see that
previous equilibrium return.
The, the real threat now is canwe still have a fishery?
(11:10):
'cause there really aren't thatmany fishermen left.
ABIGAIL (11:12):
So, I mean, one of the things that was kind of
interesting that you talk aboutwas part of the overfishing
problem, if I understandcorrectly, was that you said
every lawyer and doctor had afishing boat at one point
because there was a tax freeexemption for the fisheries.
Can you talk a little bit aboutthat and you know, how that
(11:32):
plays into this whole paradigm?
BILL (11:36):
Sure.
The, so we, the United Statessort of.
Enforced.
Its territorial imperative, Itsaid, we're gonna set up a 200
mile limit.
'cause they get tired of fleetsof eastern block boats fishing
within three miles from shore.
And they didn't, you know, thesewere fleets, these were 250 foot
boats.
We had nothing like that in thiscountry.
Followed around by a 600 foot orbetter mothership.
(11:58):
And they'd line up and justvacuum the bottom.
You know, they'd line up boat toboat for 10 boats wide and just
go up and down a bought piece ofbottom and take everything they
could.
And the, the boats had, thefactory ships had, you know fish
meal plants on board.
So nothing went back over theside.
And they really began toseriously deplete the, the
(12:19):
ecosystem.
And, you know, we think of theocean as this giant place full
of fish.
And really it's a giant emptyaqueous desert with a few
hotspots.
And Georgia's Bank, Gulf ofMaine is one of them.
And it's a really specialecosystem.
Yeah.
So.
When we closed that, the stockstarted rebounding immediately
(12:39):
and the scientists saw it, andthe United States government
said, well, we've gotta, takeadvantage of that.
So they encourage investmentinto ground fishing, and it did
a lot of things.
It put a lot of shipyards towork and a lot of people to work
in shipyards.
It put more people to work onboats.
And so we built these fleets ofboats and they did it by making
them tax shelters.
There were like seven boatsnamed Sea Lion and there were a
(13:02):
bunch of other boats.
I knew some of the lawyers whoowned them, and they weren't
really in fishing.
They just, these were ways toshelter some money and to make
some money.
And so we had a lot of fleetsboats.
We had 2,500 boats at the, atthe high end of it, and the
average size was about 90 to ahundred feet.
There were fleets of 135footers, nothing like the
(13:22):
eastern block countries had, butwe had a, a significant fleet
and probably too much.
For the ecosystem.
ABIGAIL (13:29):
How do you go about managing these, these sort of
big questions?
You meant there are a few timesin your book where, you know,
good intended policy goes awry.
It's really hard to get thepolicy.
And, and constant for people.
What is that like, and how arewe doing today?
BILL (13:53):
Well, as far as the fish go, we're doing really well as
far as the fisheries go.
Not so much the, you know, andthen throw on climate change on
top of that, which is a thing.
And the species mix has changed,and that's part of the reason
that the species mix isdifferent.
So the interesting thing is, youclose an area.
(14:15):
Thinking that we'll close ittemporarily, and then it becomes
this sacrosanct area, which youcan never reopen because there
are groups of people thatweren't around at the beginning
of it.
And just assume that, you know,these are sacred grounds and we
can never reopen'em.
And, for some of that, that'sfine.
But at some point you have toleave some room for some kind of
fishing, sustainable fishing,sustainable harvesting.
(14:37):
And the fishermen that are leftare into that.
You know, they're more closelyrelated to environmentalists
than industrialists, and that'swho they are.
They're out in the water, theylive on the ocean.
They see the change in theclimate.
They see the natural worldbetter than most of us do.
And so that's part of it.
And, you know, we've had a lotof fits and starts.
(15:00):
And a lot of it has to do withthe fact that because of all the
restrictions we put in thestatistical models, we used to
assess fish stocks became veryinaccurate.
They were, they depended on.
Or were founded on sort of freerange, free plunder.
You can fish wherever you want,whenever you want, using any
gear you want, any time youwant.
(15:20):
And then any, you know, the, themesh size didn't matter.
Taking juveniles was okay.
Taking small fish was okay, andwe had too many boats to do
that.
And so that's part of the reasonthe stocks started to collapse.
So when you pair a fisherythat's unsustainable and, and
learning to be sustainable with,with a stock assessment, you
(15:42):
know, the population dynamicsgroup who lost their ability to
be accurate, they were producingstock assessments that were plus
or minus 40%.
And that's statisticallyuseless.
But the way the law is written,you have to use it.
And there was no penalty forthem or incentive for them to
stop doing it this way andbecome more accurate.
(16:03):
There's no penalty for beinginaccurate.
And so they've been putting outthis 40% plus or minus for.
Over 20 years.
And when they put that outthere, there's no wiggle room
for the fishermen.
There's no plus or minus there.
Here's the problem, here's whatyou have to do about it.
And to that point, nationalMarine Fishery Service and Woods
(16:23):
Hole, the Population DynamicsGroup actually inserted
themselves into management.
And the way that they wrote, thestock assessment advice not only
said, here's the stockassessment advice, but they're
also able to say, and here'swhat you're going to do about
it.
So they basically took theauthority out of the council's
hand out.
Out on the West Coast, scienceproduces a, a range of what they
(16:47):
call a risk table, and thenmanagers get to choose that.
But here on the East Coast, whathappens is there's a stock,
there's stock assessment adviceand, but it's not really advice.
It comes with, and this is whatmust happen.
And so.
When you're 40% inaccurate,telling people exactly how to do
(17:07):
things, it doesn't end well.
ABIGAIL (17:10):
Right.
Right, right.
And so peop the, the yields weremuch smaller than they needed to
be, it sounds like.
BILL (17:18):
Even by the, the sort of targeted landings that were put
in place according to this.
40% uncertain.
Here's what you have to do.
Advice we, let me put it to youlike this.
If you had a hundred thousandmetric tons of something in the
past, you could target 17% ofthose.
(17:38):
And if you didn't take more thanthat, the stock would keep up
with you because it's plus orminus 40, you're not sure if
it's 140 or 60.
So you always assume 60'causewe're precautionary.
And then that gives you about10% of that a hundred thousand.
But because they claim, well,we're not really sure that we
can assess landings correctly,they took another.
(17:59):
Buffer down, and we wereactually targeting 6% and we
don't catch 2%.
So last year, for instance, outof that very restrictive, very
precautionary approach, we left63 million pounds of fish in the
water, which we could haveharvested as a community in a
very sustainable manner.
And we've been doing that yearafter year for 20 years.
(18:22):
And the, in the past 20 years,we left over a billion pounds of
haddock in the water we couldhave taken.
Now, arguably, if we had takenall the fish that we could have
you know, maybe the landingsamounts that were allowed
would've gone down some.
But the bottom line is we'releaving a lot of fish in the
water and no threat.
You know, 2,500 boats when Istarted fishing, shrunk down to
(18:44):
less than 200, and the averagesize is about 50, not 90.
So the, the actual fishing poweris well reduced.
But if, if you talk to somepeople in the scientific
community, they're of the mindthat there's still this giant
fleet out there with the samecapacity.
It would be nice to see us come,you know, say take 40 million
pounds of that 60, we're leavingin the water.
(19:06):
That's real opportunity forpeople.
And it's not just jobs, it'slivelihoods and it's really
healthy food for people.
And it, I agree, it has to bemanaged sustainably.
ABIGAIL (19:15):
As a oyster farmer, I became very aware that there
were people who had fantasticintentions about the waterfront
in general, about promotingcertain ideas or regulating
certain ways.
And I felt sometimes like thosepeople weren't connected deeply
enough to the actual task thatthe fishermen, the lobstermen,
(19:38):
and the Aquacultures wereactually doing.
And so I felt like theintentions and the policy.
We're not aligned in the waythey should be.
And I felt that was like anundertone in your book that I
was, I was very grateful to hearbecause I think it's really hard
for people to talk about in anon angry way.
(19:58):
But I think you do it in areally thoughtful and
non-threatening way that isthat's very positive.
BILL (20:05):
Well, thank you.
And that, and that's a greatpoint and a great question.
There's a group of people outthere and especially younger
people that are in the wholeFinding Nemo mindset about
Fisher friends not food.
And if you watch a movie likethat, you notice that when they
get to the part where the, thefishing boat is in, in the
movie, everything gets darkerand everything, you know, the,
the, the sky gets darker and thefisher.
(20:29):
Yeah.
And, and, and then if you go tosome of the aquariums and you
walk around and you look at thelittle placards by each tank,
they're actually charactercaricatures on the tanks, making
fishermen look like thesebrutes.
And the truth is, you scratch afisherman underneath, you're
gonna find an environmentalistand a lot of these very
passionate young people that areout to save the planet, which is
(20:53):
a great idea and a great lifemission.
the bottom line is we have a lotmore in common as the fishing
community with the environmentalcommunity than most people
realize.
And we really ought to be allieson sustainable partnerships and
sustainable fishing.
We're, we're, you know, I agreethat food is a result of
(21:13):
something dying for most, almostall kinds of food.
And without food, something elseis gonna die.
And that would be you and me ifwe stopped eating in, in pretty
short order.
So it's a sacred thing.
And it, it has to be done withcare and it has to be
appreciated.
(21:34):
I like to say when I taught alot of weight servers and they
look at me cross-eyed, but Istart with, you know, food's a
sacred thing.
And that's because without foodyou die.
And for something to becomefood, it dies.
So every recipe needs a cup ofgratitude and, and a teaspoon of
reverence.
you know, this is why we saygrace.
Cultures have been saying grace.
(21:56):
I have three books on my shelfthat have different ways to say
grace, going back thousands ofyears, the humans that
understood how sacred food was.
And that's the approach thatneeds to happen when it comes to
fishing.
And I, I don't expect everybodyto, you know, bring religion out
there.
I just think you have to have anappreciation of how you're
managing a fishery.
(22:16):
And, and I think a lot offishermen get that.
When you watch those sunrisesand sunsets and you are, are
buffeted by the ocean and you,you have that connection to
nature.
I think you appreciate that andyou appreciate the fact that,
you know, you're not justslaughtering food, you're,
you're killing things to feedother people, and I took a lot
of pride in that, in feedingpeople.
ABIGAIL (22:37):
No, I think that work on the, on the water and, you
know, I don't know what it'slike to be at, at sea like that.
I can only imagine you're outthere and you can't see land for
a few days.
I've never had that experience,but even just working.
In the Scarborough Marsh was,was, was somewhat
transcendental.
So I get, and that comes acrossin your book, the sort of
spiritual connection to, to thefish and the crew and the and
(23:01):
the food you're preparing.
Before we get there, I wanna askyou a little bit about
aquaculture.
How does aquaculture fit intothis fish paradigm?
What role does it play and, andwhat are your thoughts on it?
BILL (23:16):
Well, first of all, good on you for being in the
aquaculture biz'cause it's, asyou found out, it's not easy.
It's hard physical and kind ofdirty work and it, but it's also
very rewarding.
And if, if I was a 20 somethingjust starting out on the deck of
a fishing boat or a lobsterboat, I'd be looking to get an
(23:39):
aquaculture lease too.
Because one of the things Ilearned early on at fishing was
that the fishermen would say,fish got tails.
And it doesn't just mean thatthey're gonna.
Swim'em away from you and youhave to hunt them.
It means that some years fishthat you've been depending upon
aren't available.
And you have to be flexible.
You have to be able to work outa different ports.
You have to be able to work ondifferent fisheries.
(24:00):
Unfortunately a lot of us havegotten boxed in by National
Marine Fishery Service, so it'snot as easy to transition from
one to the other.
But water skills are waterskills, whether you're working
on a flat bottom, oyster boat orout in the ocean on a distant
water boat, and they translatepretty easily from one form to
another.
And that kind of skillset andthat kind of human capital is
(24:23):
really important not just to theworld, but to feed people.
And so I, I love the fact thatAquaculture's becoming more of a
thing in Maine, that one of thepositive things of the water
warming in Maine, if you can seethat, although if it gets too
warm, it's not gonna be positiveanymore, is the fact that
shellfish grows so much fasteralong the coast of Maine.
(24:46):
So don't the predators likegreen crabs, but oyster farming
is a thing and Maine has some ofthe best tasting oysters in the
world.
You know, I, I, I can talk aboutthat in a minute, but the ROIs
that's available in places likeCasco Bay and the DeMarco River
is on par or better than anythat I've s I've, you know, had
(25:09):
from any place else I've evereaten an oyster.
ABIGAIL (25:12):
Yeah, I have a, a French uncle who has been oyster
obsessed since his youth inFrance, and when he first came
to, to Maine where now he liveswith my aunt.
He, he was a little bitsuspicious of these Maine
oysters that weren't, you know,ocean grown.
They tended to be grown inestuaries or, you know, salty
rivers and, and, and inlets.
(25:35):
And now he can't go back toFrench oysters because they
don't have the complexity.
They don't have that nuance thatMaine oysters have.
So, that's just one of manypeople who've been convinced of
the superiority of the Maineoyster, sorry to everybody else
listening to this podcast fromoutside of Maine.
But even Finfish aquaculture,like that's there, there are
(25:55):
some new finfish aquacultureplants that are being built.
Aquaculture got a really badwrap and it's really hard to
dispel that even among familymembers of mine that won't buy
anything farm raised.
And I'm like, you wanna, like,farm raised is good now.
Can you talk about that?
BILL (26:18):
Yeah, that mindset.
'cause I, I speak to a lot ofpeople and not just, you know,
when I'm doing book talks atlibraries and community centers
and things like that, but in myformer career, I'd speak to a
lot of chefs.
We did a fish school.
I have like 16 chefs in a roomfour times a year.
And one of the talks was aboutsustainability.
(26:38):
And if you, I'd always ask dohow many people in the room when
I hear they hear the term farmfish, know somewhere in the back
of their mind.
There's something wrong withthat.
And almost every hand goes up.
And I'd say, congratulations,you've been successfully
marketed to.
And what happened was, you know,I worked for Foley Fish for 35
years, and they were founded in1906, and I started with'em in
(27:01):
1986.
And for the first 75 years or soof their existence, you could
only buy wild salmon becausethat's all that was available.
And it was available you know,in a limited time during the
season, which is great.
The fish was very inconsistent.
One box would be beautiful, thenext would be rancid.
(27:22):
And then.
You know, the season ended,there was no more available.
So that's, the chef used it.
Well, then the Norwegians showedup in the eighties with this
farm raise fish, and every fishwas still in rigor.
And it was available year round.
And when you opened a box, youdidn't smell fish, you smelled
cucumbers or watermelons.
It had this really pleasantaroma and the taste was great
(27:45):
and it had the right fatcontent.
So in their haste to meet theman, the farmers made a lot of
mistakes.
And meanwhile, the wild salmonindustry just lost the market
completely.
They, their market was canneriesand that was it.
And they were getting 50 cents apound and then nobody wanted
wild salmon in a restaurantanymore, because you could get
(28:07):
the, the farm 12 months, a year.
No, never a mistake.
Always tasted great, steadyprice, steady availability, and
the farmers.
Would put as many fish as theycould in a pen and feed like
crazy and put as many pens asthey could in the site, as many
sites in a bay.
And as soon as a pen was empty,they reintroduce new fish.
(28:28):
And all these husbandrypractices were bad.
It was like, you know, if you'regonna raise pork or chicken or
beef and not pay attention tohusbandry, you're going to not
only have a lot of problems,you're not gonna make any money.
Which is exactly what happenedto the farmers.
So Alaska seafood marketinginitially tried slamming farm
salmon themselves and nobodypaid attention'cause you're just
(28:49):
running down a competitor.
So they gathered up theinformation, the poor husbandry
choices that farms made, whichthey had corrected by the way,
but, and became sustainable.
They, they collected all those,put'em in, in a, like a dossier
and handed them off to the NGOs.
And this happened to be in theearly nineties, about the same
(29:10):
time as cable news was takingoff.
So here you have a, an entitythat needs content.
24 7, 365 and you have a groupof NGOs that need funding and
anything they can speak about orchampion generally brings them
in some funding.
And, and it's not just thatthey, they wanna fight for
what's good in the world and theway things ought to be.
(29:32):
And I support that.
But it's also about funding.
'cause you can't survive withoutfunding.
So they held news conferences,the cable news showed up and
they used the marketing thatAlaska Seafood marketing handed
off to'em.
And Ray Reta, the executivedirector, admitted this, said we
couldn't slam'em ourselves, butwe could hand it off to a third
(29:53):
party.
And it was very successful.
So, and I noticed it because themarketing quote, you know, the,
the news or really marketingshowed up about three months
before the wild season everyyear like clockwork.
So it wouldn't happen in, youknow, Christmas time.
It, it would happen in March,you know, February, March.
Oh, farm salmon does this andfarm salmon does that and, and
(30:17):
all, you know, I could, it's along story and I could go on for
a while, but, but basically theend result was we went from only
selling wild as a company.
'cause that's all you could getto only selling farm.
'cause nobody wanted a wildanymore.
All of a sudden we're sellingboast.
But not only that, the firstCopper River Kings helicoptered
off the district.
'cause that's where they'recaught outside the river, not in
(30:37):
it.
The first Thursday after May15th, you know, to awaiting
Alaska airline jet showed up inBoston and we're commanding$25 a
pound for the whole fish, whichwas like$60 a pound for filets,
which is ridiculous.
So we were selling both and notonly, you know, then the
customers would march into arestaurant and chew out the
server and chew out the managerand chew out the chef for using
(31:00):
this evil farm raised salmonwhen it really wasn't the case.
And I'm, you know, I'm out thereat that time.
Training servers is part of myjob.
And I couldn't tell'em thatstory or I tell'em that story
and say, you can't walk up to atable when you've got five other
tables working
ABIGAIL (31:17):
right.
BILL (31:18):
hustling around and, and, and engage in this conversation.
You've got work to do.
Just say, you know, we, andbesides, I feel like sometimes
Americans like to get their newsoff a bumper sticker, so I gave
'em a bumper sticker, which wasour salmon is, is sustainably
farm raised and specially fed.
And that's all you can do.
And if they choose not to haveit, you know, don't get in an
(31:39):
argument, the customer's alwaysright.
But it, the, the sad thing wasit poisoned the American psyche
for all kinds of farm fish.
You know, I know it's kind of along, drawn out story, but
that's what happened.
I, there are places like Chilewhere they still have issues
because industry runs governmentinstead of government regulating
industry.
(31:59):
And when you have thosesituations, it doesn't always
end well.
But, you know, places likeCanada and Ireland and Scotland.
Are very careful on, on how thecompanies themselves use a
couple different the AquacultureStewardship Council and best
Aquaculture practices, which areauditing companies.
So they have to pay money to,but they have to also meet
(32:21):
pretty strict standards to meetthose.
So you look for those seals ofapproval and, and feel
comfortable and confident aboutthe Fisher eating
ABIGAIL (32:29):
It's interesting how you know.
We're not fishing enough, we'refishing too much.
We stop, we overregulate, welike the pendulum.
You know, we only eat wild fish,then we only eat farm fish and,
and then we don't wanna eat farmfish.
The pendulum in the, in thewhole fishing industry, from one
end to the, of it to the other,just seems to swing at these
(32:52):
huge, huge gyrations.
And it would be nice if it werekind of just more in the middle,
ticking back and forth,
BILL (33:01):
well.
I think the word human is neverassociated with the word
perfection.
So, and that's who we are as youknow, my mother, people talk
about, oh, the world isterrible.
Guess what?
The world's always beenterrible.
My mom explained that to me at avery young age.
She said, I grew up during theGreat Depression, and then we
(33:22):
had Hitler and Stalin and, andthe the Iron Curtain and, and
you know, and pick up a historybook and go back.
The world's always been aterrible place.
Don't let that stop you frombeing a good person or finding a
calling and, and throwingyourself into something that you
feel is good and wholesome inhelping other people.
Just, you can't focus on thatstuff.
It's, it's better to shut thenews off'cause you're not really
(33:43):
learning anything.
ABIGAIL (33:45):
that sounds like good advice.
In addition to your fishingduties on these fishing boats,
you were really trying to raisethe bar in terms of fish quality
so that the fish smelled likecucumber and and beautiful
things and not like fish.
Three times in your book yousay, don't fish shouldn't smell
fishy, which I appreciate.
Tell us a little bit, tell theconsumer, like what, what kinds
(34:08):
of fish should we be buying?
What should we be doing with it?
How should we be keeping it?
Give us some practical advicefrom a guy who knows a lot about
that
BILL (34:19):
it's possible I put that in there three times by
accident, but it's also possibleI put that in there three times
because that's how we used toteach.
Tell'em what you're gonna tell'em.
Tell'em, tell'em what you toldthem.
So I'm actually re subbing thebook and I'll add the line.
Are you paying attention yet?
But fresh fish?
You know, bad meat smells,rancid, bad milk smells sour.
(34:41):
When fish goes bad, we say it'sfishy.
And, and that just illustrateshow perishable fish is because
we don't refer to anything elseas itself when we're talking
about it not being good.
Meat's not meaty when it's bad.
Milk's not milky when it's bad.
Cheese isn't cheesy, peoplecould be cheesy, but the the
fresh fish shouldn't have afishy odor.
(35:04):
And if it, the, the spoilagebacteria work on it so quickly
because it's the most perishableof the proteins.
And I don't understand theentire biology, but I did
understand how fish spoiled.
So the, the, the keys are this,if you walk into a fish market
and all you can smell is, isfishy, then that's probably not
(35:25):
your fish market.
I worked in fish plants twodifferent fish plants owned by
Foley.
And we cut millions of pounds offish in a year.
And you could never smell fishthere.
Not even in the parking lot, youknow, we cleaned our parking
lot.
It's about keeping things clean.
It's about keeping things cold.
Don't let the bacteria have achance to thrive.
And at between 28 and 32degrees, the bacteria can't
(35:47):
work.
It's there.
It doesn't die, but it doesn'twork.
It doesn't grow.
And that doesn't produce thatthat nitrogen smell.
That's the fishy odor.
So start with that cold isimportant.
You want to keep your fishcovered so that it doesn't get
dried out by the air.
'cause the moisture is theflavor you want to use.
Very short cooking times andlots of heat.
(36:08):
So we used to save 450 degreespreheated oven per and a 10
minutes per inch of thickness.
And that's it.
People say I have to beconfident to cook fish.
No.
Cooking fish gives youconfidence.
It's so easy to cook.
My mom used to cook stuff for 30minutes and it would dry it out
and it smelled up the kitchen.
And that's because back in thosedays, nobody knew what fish was.
(36:31):
And we all hated it.
And I don't blame people forhating it.
We don't eat rancid meat.
We don't drink sour milk.
So start with if you're in arestaurant and you smell fish,
don't order it.
If you're in a fish marketthat's not yours.
If they, if it smells fishy andif they'll let you take a whiff
of it, you know, just before youbuy it, but you're looking for
translucent as opposed tochalky, you're looking for a
(36:52):
bright sort of glossy fish.
There's other things thatinvolve, but, you know, as far
as chemicals added, which makesit almost look too good.
But for the most part, if youcan get natural fish, then when
you on the way home, don't putit, throw it in the back seat,
keep it in a cooler with someice.
And if you're not gonna eat itthat night.
(37:12):
You know, you don't wanna putthe fish in ice and have the ice
melting on it, but you want tohave the container that it's in
under some ice in the backcorner of your fridge and just
keep it cold.
I'll also kind of use gel packson top of the, you know, so that
they, they keep the fish cold.
So if I don't have ice handy,but the bottom line is if you're
gonna cook it today, fine.
(37:32):
If you're not, keep it about asclose to 30, between 28 and 32.
'cause ocean fish won't freezeuntil below 28.
So keep it fresh.
And then when you cook it, youknow, bring it out, portion it
up, it likes a good, you know,pan sear.
So you get caramelization.
It likes butter.
It likes a lot of heat in shortcooking times and medium rare is
(37:54):
the way to go.
You can always cook it somemore.
But medium rare fish has such apleasant flavor and it's nothing
to be afraid of.
ABIGAIL (38:02):
Should you ever wash fish?
BILL (38:06):
You can rinse off a whole fish and rinse the belly of a
whole fish if it's bleeding.
And that's a good idea.
But if, if you're talking aboutfilets, no because the water
will go inside the cells of thefish through osmosis and change
the flavor.
So it's a bad idea to wash fish.
I've seen restaurants where theyhave fish soaking in the sink
'cause it's thawing out and it'slike, well, nobody's gonna enjoy
(38:28):
that, but they probably don'tsell much fish here, which is
why they have to pull it out thefreezer in the first place.
Bad fish leads to fewer sales,fewer sales leads to bad fish.
So fish is an intentional thingif you're gonna cook it, if
you're gonna serve it.
All those things, you reallyhave to pay attention.
ABIGAIL (38:44):
I can't wait to try your recipes, which are
hilarious because they're suchdude's recipes.
I love the way you give them.
They're simple.
There's no measuring.
They're so un fussy.
It's just you feel this reallyvisceral connection with that
food you're making.
It's just a beautiful, beautifulrecipe.
(39:06):
I want a whole recipe book likethat.
It's how I prefer to cook.
I don't like to worry aboutteaspoons.
So for the client who wants togo buy something and be
sustainable and is, are theresome decisions when you're in
the fish market that are moresustainable than others?
BILL (39:23):
the, you know, haddock, believe it or not, the stock is
huge and it's very sustainable.
And if you can find a fishmarket that, and that's bottom
from a fishermen and both of'emknow what they're doing, that's
great.
And you can do so many thingsbesides cover'em.
And Ritz Cracker comes and bake'em, which is terrific.
But, you know, the skin onhaddock really fresh, Sears up
nice and crispy and is, is, ifit's a fresh fish, is a tastiest
(39:46):
thing.
Tastiest part of it.
The, you know, a lot of the I, Ilove, they call it fluke or, or
summer a summer flounder, whichis a great fish, which you can,
you know, if you get a sushigrade where they actually,
they're bled before they'redressed, they, they you can eat
those, you know, make a cevicheout of those.
(40:06):
So those are a couple of myfaves, but I also love
swordfish, which is verysustainably harvested fish in
spite of the Gibb Swordfish.
A break campaign, which is kindof a.
A bogus thing.
Tuna fish, you know, bluefin,harvested right now is, is being
done sustainably.
And carefully.
And you know, it's interesting.
We, we were dealing with we hadtwo on the highly migratory
(40:29):
species.
We had two, we had all thesesessions and we, they broke out
on different kinds of speciesand there were two on bluefin
back to back.
The first one was whether or notwe should up list it.
That's a nice sounding word,isn't it?
Up list it.
What it means is, should wethrow it on the, the endangered
species list and ban it frombeing, so we're, we're talking
about that and everybody knew itwas kind of like a ridiculous
(40:51):
discussion.
And then the second one was,well, the Mediterranean fishery
finally got their act togetherand stopped over harvesting.
And we've got a thousand metrictons.
We can take just a thousand onthe whole East coast of the
United States that split upbetween all the states that the
fish passes by.
And because we're gonna see somany more fish, how are we gonna
(41:11):
keep from over harvesting?
So the, the juxtaposition of isthis endangered to, there's so
many, we may over harvest oursustainable quota.
How are we having both thoseconversations at the same time?
But so things like tuna fish aregood.
They, they're very few species.
If it's in endangered, not onlycan't you eat it legally, you
(41:32):
can't accidentally kill it.
You, you know, if riding yourbike down the street endangered
a, a species that was on the, onthe list, then riding down your
bike down the street would beillegal.
That's how strict the law is.
And other entities have createdtheir own endangered species
list, which aren't really the USendangered species list.
And they say, well, these areendangered according to our
(41:54):
standards.
But the bottom line is you canalso eat things like, I dunno,
mackerel or very good fishhaddock is one of my favorites.
Ha is a great fish.
There's a lot of the gulf fish.
People ask me what my favoritefish is.
It's hard for me to.
Nail myself down on it becausethere's so many fish out there.
You can do so many things with'em.
(42:14):
And it's not like, you know, 20different cuts of the same
critter.
It's all these different speciesthat are so different and so
tasty and so easy to cook.
ABIGAIL (42:24):
making me hungry.
What do you, what impact wouldyou like to have with this book?
BILL (42:31):
well, I heard the phrase don't write a book to get rich.
Write a book to connect withpeople you'll never meet.
And I'm kind of leaning in thatdirection.
I, you know, it's, I, I bumpinto people who have actually
read it.
And, you know, it was inManhattan last weekend and a
bookseller called Three Liveshad three copies, which I sent
(42:52):
them.
I said, don't send'em back.
I, I don't wanna get paid for'em.
And they said, usually we throwbooks like this in the bin, but
we read it, we loved it, and wesold it.
And I was walking on the air forthe rest of the day.
And so those kind of experiencesare what I'm looking for.
I'm having a lot of fun talkingto people, connecting with
people.
I donate to libraries everywhereI go.
(43:14):
Being self-published, you'rekind of at the bottom of the
literary barrel, but you canstill see the stars from there.
So I'm out there talking topeople who are listening at a
great time on Shabi Island acouple weeks ago and 30 people
showed up and paid the, thelibrary support fund, 10 bucks a
piece.
And we talked about fish and Ibrought fish and we ate fish.
(43:35):
And I've decided that in thefuture, as many times as
possible, I'm gonna bring fishwith me and serve it whether I
can do it at a restaurant.
So they have to, you know,they'll pay for it and charge
for it.
Or I can bring some snacksmyself, I was at the Booth Bay
Region Public Library.
Last week and we had crab, macand cheese and, and some
scallops with a dot of pesto.
(43:56):
So there's so many differentways to eat fish and people when
they, when they love thestories, but I think they like
the fish better.
ABIGAIL (44:07):
I don't know, bill, I, I honestly was blown away by
your ability to tell a storyAbsolutely blown away.
And not that I'm any greatliterary critic or anything,
but, but I did study comp lit asan undergraduate.
I read a lot of books.
It was a really, really wellturned story.
(44:27):
And I think that's what bringsthis all home in such a
beautiful way, is that you havethis incredible breadth of
experience, this passion for,you know, raising the bar in the
industry on every level, butthis and this love for cooking
the fish.
And, but you have this powerfulway of communicating it.
(44:47):
And and I think that makes thisa really, really special
opportunity, not just for you,but also for the readers.
Anybody who's interested in thewaterfront should take a, take
this home with them and give ita read.
BILL (44:58):
My advice for authors is write what comes to you.
'cause I tried to write a, youknow, the book is kind of a
chronology.
It starts when I was lobsteringback in 1980 and walked it
through my career on thewaterfront.
But I didn't, I didn't write itthat way.
I tried writing it that way andI rewrite, reread the, the stuff
I was writing and I was reallydisappointed with it.
(45:21):
I was like, who would read this?
So I put it down for a fewmonths and then a story came to
me and I said, oh, I'll writethat.
And so I started, I just wrote astory and it had nothing to do
with any timeline.
It was just something thathappened like five years ago.
Or 10 years ago, or 20 yearsago, or a couple weeks ago.
And I, I started writing thoseas they came to me.
(45:41):
And then I felt the sort ofstory come to me.
And once I, and I have a brotherwho's a, who's a author, and he
fills the internet with content.
But he was rereading some of mywriting and helping edit it.
But he didn't do a whole lot ofediting.
He just kept telling me, this isgood, bill.
I hope you think it's good.
And when I had enough together,I kind of sat down.
(46:03):
And then I organized ISDA alongthe timeline.
And that's why there's a chaptercalled Bycatch.
'cause there were a number ofstories that really didn't fit
anywhere else.
So I just threw'em all together.
'cause I thought they were goodstories, but maybe belonged in
some kind of offhand fashion.
ABIGAIL (46:20):
So you know, what is your hope for the working
waterfront?
I mean, where do you see itgoing and, you know, how is this
gonna play out from here?
BILL (46:31):
There's a lot of opportunity, not just ground
fishing and, and fishing ingeneral because in the United
States we're serious aboutmanaging our fisheries and we
have control of the water withinthe 200 mile limit, but, but the
bottom line is there's a lot offish that could be sustainably
harvested.
So, and there's a lot of,there's fishermen that know how
to do it.
(46:52):
We need support from science andthere's a way forward with that
using ai.
And instead of this statisticalmodeling that gathers data from
landings and, and some surveycruises where they're using the
net, that's too small for theboat that's being fishing,
that's using it.
There's some guys in UMassDartmouth that are towing a net
(47:12):
with cameras and lights and theopen co end, and they can tow it
for 20 plus hours straight.
And so it's making a video, butit's not a, not a video, it's a
digital data stream.
And because it's a digitalvideo, ai, which is much better
than it was 10 years ago whenthey started developing this,
can watch it.
(47:33):
And this, because it's a digitaldata stream, it's also connected
to a GPS and a and a clock.
So it's geo located intimestamped and it's got images
of all these fish going throughit.
And the AI is being taught howto watch the video, identify the
different kinds of species andnot just what they are, what's
(47:57):
what approximate age they are,what size they are, so it can
estimate your classes.
And then.
S you know, indicate where itwas seen and when it was seen,
and how many of'em, this is astatistician's dream and right
now Woods Hole is very muchstuck to the old way of doing
it.
The, you know, the virtualpopulation analysis, which is
(48:19):
producing these 40% plus orminus stock assessments, which
are useless when they can getback to where they used to be,
which was two to 3%.
You know, we used to have themost accurate stock assessments
in the world.
Get back there by going forward,not by going back.
And, and because of that, wecan, you know, there's
opportunities for fishing and,and until that happens, it's
(48:42):
gonna be difficult to open upfishing again.
Then the second thing is.
You know, you pair that withAgricul and, and people, that,
young people that actually wantto get out and work in this kind
of environment and be involvedin something that's, you know,
I, I meet a lot of young oysterfarmers and they're very
passionate about sustainabilityand, and as a retired person, I
(49:02):
have to say, the best thing youcan do with your life when you
retire is find a way to workwith young people.
Young people are uniquelyqualified to inhabit the time
and space that they're in, andit's their world they're coming
into.
So, you know, I know I'm talkinga lot, but when I'm with young
people, I do this
ABIGAIL (49:19):
Hmm.
BILL (49:20):
because they don't want to hear your stories.
They want to see you do somestuff, which they'll happily
learn from.
But, you know, I think there'sgreat opportunities and I think
that we have to be intentionalabout how we do it.
I think this is the best time inhistory to be alive.
And people ask me why.
I said, well, let's start withcraft beer.
But, but there's movements likethe Billion Oyster Project and,
(49:43):
and the you know, organicfarming initiatives that are all
over the place and all clams ondeck down in Florida where
they're trying to, addresilience and reinvigorate the,
the coastline there.
There, there's a lot of thingsgoing on where people are paying
attention to this.
Opportunities there.
It's just a matter of there,there's plenty of people that
are looking for opportunity, andall I can say is if you choose
(50:06):
this life on the waterfront andon the water prepare to be
grateful to yourself that youdid.
ABIGAIL (50:13):
Oh, I think we should just end there.
That was beautiful.
And I have to say I, I am a, abetter and different person from
my, for my 10 years as a oysterfarmer.
That shaped me in a veryprofound way.
So I agree with you.
Thank you so much, bill, forcoming on, and congratulations
on a really great book and soglad to reconnect with you.
BILL (50:36):
Thank you.
Yeah.
Stay in touch.
And yeah I, I'm really honoredto be on your podcast and, and
at some point my brother.
Who's been helping me says,bill, you, you need to do a
podcast someday.
I'm gonna do the audio bookfirst, but then I'm gonna look
into some podcasting in thefuture.
ABIGAIL (50:52):
great.
Well, I can't wait to hear it.
BILL (50:55):
all right, my friend.
Take care.
Welcome to the podcast where we celebrate innovation
for a happy planet.
I am your host, Abigail Carroll.
If you have ever wanted to liftthe veil on New England's
mysterious working waterfront,this is the podcast for you.
Our guest today is Bill er, aveteran of 40 plus years on the
New England Working Waterfront.
(00:20):
Bill served as lobstermancommercial fishermen, fish
buyer, salesperson, corporatetrainer, fisheries management
advisor, and in retirement, apart-time oyster farmer.
I have known Bill for years ashe used to buy oysters from me
back in the day.
Bill has recently written amemoir called Working
Waterfront, a Fishtail withhumor and insight.
(00:42):
It dives into everything fromnear-death experiences while
fishing to bar brawls andpolicymaking.
The tone is Hemingway ask.
He doesn't mince words, and hetells it like he sees it.
Each chapter ends with afittingly, rough and ready
seafood recipe.
I love this book because itprovides unparalleled personal
(01:04):
insights into the evolvinglandscape of our fisheries and
marine ecosystem, both on andoff the water.
But let's hear it from Bill.
welcome to the podcast, bill.
BILL (01:19):
Well, thank you.
Thanks for inviting me and I'mreally honored to be here.
ABIGAIL (01:23):
Well, it's a delight.
Just a little backgroundinformation.
I know you from the time when Iwas an oyster farmer and you
were my buyer at one point.
And now we've both moved on fromthose jobs.
I'm interested to know why youwrote this book.
BILL (01:40):
The shorter answer is 'cause I had to.
ABIGAIL (01:42):
Hmm.
BILL (01:42):
You know, I thought about writing books over the years and
on this or that, and I never gotpast the first line, you know,
something stupid, like it was adark and stormy night, and that
was it.
But when I got close toretirement, I thought, geez, I
know exactly what to writeabout, and I was compelled to
write it.
So I just felt really stronglythat I had a book in me and I
wanted to try and write it whenI retired.
(02:04):
And my, my goal was to retireand do nothing but write.
It didn't work out that way, buteventually it, it all came to
me.
And, and the process wasinteresting too.
ABIGAIL (02:14):
Well, you have a very interesting perspective to give
on the working waterfrontbecause you were a fisherman,
you were a fish dealer.
You were on the board of thefish exchange in Portland you've
worked on oyster farms, you'vebeen in policy making, tell me
how all of this work together tokind of shape your view that you
(02:37):
communicate through the book.
BILL (02:40):
You know, it all kind of happened by accident.
I didn't have this plan.
Here's what I'm gonna do.
It's just I, I started as afisherman and got really hooked
on quality at sea, which led meto Foley Fish and the Portland
Fish Auction as a buyer forthem.
And I was passionate about theauction, you know, watching it
work.
And at one time I was doing'emall at once.
(03:03):
I was, I was going to fisherymanagement meetings, I was going
to PFE board meetings.
I was cooking at Fridays at theSt.
Vincent's Soup Kitchen and.
I spent a lot of timevolunteering and not making
money, but I don't regret any ofthat.
I, I just, I met a lot of greatpeople.
I learned an awful lot fromquite a few of those people.
(03:24):
So it, it kind of, you know,towards the end of it, I
thought, gee, I, I'm, I kind ofknow a couple things about this
thing that I've been doing withmy life, and that helped with
the writing.
ABIGAIL (03:36):
Well, I think that's what's so astonishing is that,
you've got these stories fromthe bar brawls on the working
waterfront to to reallyhigh-end, perspective of trying
to create policy and,interacting with Noah.
And then you have this reallygreat ability to tell a story
(03:58):
and it's, it's not overly, youknow, worked.
The writing is really fluid,it's natural.
I hear Bill in it.
I just kept turning pages.
You are in a very special placeit seems to me to be writing
this book.
And it's, I think it's animportant time.
BILL (04:17):
I was reading two authors while I was writing because in,
a movable feast by Hemingway.
He said, you have to write, Ihave to read in order to write.
And so my two authors were awoman named Jill Connor Brown,
who wrote a series of comedybooks called The Sweet Potato
Queens of Jackson, Mississippi.
And it was a hoot.
And a French suggested itbecause she ended every chapter
(04:38):
with a recipe.
And so I copied that and Icopied a little bit of her
snarky voice.
And I was also reading AnthonyBourdain, not because I want to
be Anthony Bourdain, but becauseI loved his voice and the way he
wrote and the way he spoke tothe reader.
And so between the two of them,you know, I'd write some, I'd
pick up a book and read it.
And I, I felt bad about Anthonybecause as I got through his
(05:01):
third book, I, which I believewas called Medium Raw, it
occurred to me that, you know,how did nobody see his suicide
coming?
You could see the darknesscreeping in as he wrote
successive books and the, andthe sort of self loathing and
it.
Shouldn't have been there.
'cause he was, he was such ahero to so many of us.
ABIGAIL (05:19):
Well, it's funny you mentioned Hemingway,'cause
Hemingway kept popping in myhead as I was reading and just
that raw directness and, andsome of the subject matter.
Again, getting down into thegrit of the life on the boats
and the working waterfront.
I wanna hear a little bit moreabout the early days on the
working waterfront.
(05:41):
'cause you have some stories of,you know, rough times in the
bars.
Is it different today?
I don't mean those specificplaces.
Portland's been gentrified forsure.
But is the working waterfrontstill a rough place or has that
evolved with everything else?
BILL (05:58):
Honestly, I think a lot of it's evolved.
I was in Fulton Fish Market acouple of days ago early in the
morning, and that's not theplace it was, you know, it's up
in Hunts Point in a bigrefrigerated building and not
down in, on South Street underthe the, the Brooklyn Bridge
and, you know, the groundcovered with a inch of sludge
and, and kind of a rough andtumble place.
(06:20):
You know, my mother grew up inBrooklyn and there was an Irish
guy, and she was Irish, an Irishguy in her neighborhood that
used to work in Fulton.
He had his own company and shesaid he used to come home,
thumped up all the time.
And I talked to some friends whowere Irish in the new Fulton
Fish Market, and they were like,yeah, that was the old days.
None of that happens anymore.
There was a time in New Bedford,for instance, where the heroin
(06:41):
dealers used to catch the lineswhen the scallop boats were
coming back in.
'cause their customers had justarrived home and they're gonna
have a boatload of money.
But nowadays fishing boats willbreathalyze you or drug test you
and, and there's so much moneyto be made on some of these
endeavors.
And they don't want, you know,bombs, they want professionals.
And it, you know, my early daysI was a dope.
(07:04):
I, I was an idiot.
I was kind of a, a buttheadrunning around the waterfront
and, you know, and it woke, Iwoke up to the idea that most of
these guys like lobstermenaren't drinking in bars all the
time.
And, and you know, not partying.
And I, I was only home for acouple days at a time when I was
ground fishing.
And it occurred to me, geez, ifI spend my two days home in the
(07:25):
bar.
If I eventually quit groundfishing, I'm gonna associate
being on shore with drinking.
And what kind of life is thatgonna be?
So not just drinking, but beingdrunk.
So I, I spent trip after trip ofjust not even drinking because
you, you were clean and soberoffshore.
Most of us were.
There were a couple weren't.
I documented a growth processtoo, and it was more than just,,
(07:46):
learning how to be a citizen anda decent person.
But there was a spiritualcomponent to it too, because I
read all these books like FarleyMoat and James Clavell when I
was fishing, and then I readthe, just for the heck of it, I
read the Bible cover to cover.
And that brought me to otherauthors like Dan Millman and a
book called A Course inMiracles.
(08:07):
And, you know, a bunch ofdifferent people like Sojourner
Truth and some of the Easternphilosophers and.
Who, I'm sorry I can't rememberright now, but, so I was always
kind of exploring that while Iwas going through all this.
It was a sort of a, so there'sa, if you pardon the pun, an
undercurrent of spirituality inthe book as well, and
ABIGAIL (08:29):
I think that definitely comes across.
I think you talk a lot about thefamily virtues of hard work and
honesty that that were bestowedon you and how that helped shape
your career, but your ownpersonal growth out there and
struggling with temptation ofbeing in the bars and trying to
make right decisions when noteverybody around you is making
(08:50):
the right decisions.
I thought it was a beautifulstory and in the context of this
changing framework of a fishery.
BILL (08:58):
yeah, it's a fishery that's been struggling to become
more sustainable because for.
of years.
Fishing was just fishing.
It was sort of like, based onthe right of free plunder, if
you could get out there and takesomething, then it was yours to
take.
And, and there was never anythought that we could ever, put
the stalks in jeopardy.
(09:19):
And then that started happeningin the late eighties and early
nineties, and National MarineFisheries Service started
sounding the alarm.
And a lot of fishermen didn'tbelieve it.
And then you could see it startto happen.
I was on the ground fishadvisory panel for 20 years, and
we struggled with an industrythat needed to become more
sustainable and, excuse me, butand, and that, that was sort of
(09:47):
soul sucking, energy draininglong meetings.
You know, I'm looking around inthe wall trying to find the vent
that's sucking out everybody'senergy and joy but that's
democracy, isn't it?
It's frustrating.
It's everybody has to have anopinion and everybody gets to
share it, and that's fine.
'cause that's how you arrive atgood outcomes as opposed to, you
(10:07):
know, we're gonna go down onepath and listen to one mind.
If you bring in lots ofdifferent voices, even voices
that you, you severely disagreewith, there's still something in
there.
And so if you pay attention toit, you, you know, we actually
did some really good things inspite of it all.
And the stalks themselves, whilethe species mix isn't the same,
(10:28):
because you can't depleteeverything and then expect
everything to reach its pre,previous equilibrium.
The aggregate species mix inthe, the Gulf of Maine and
George's bank is as big as it'sever been.
There's, there's no questionthat the, the stock in general,
the stocks in general, are fullyrecovered now.
There's still some that are,that are shy, but that's
(10:49):
because, not because ofanything, you know, fishing
mortality, it's because ofnatural mortality and the, the
struggle to compete for the ecospace with other species that,
you know, jump, you know, filledthe empty space quicker.
And so they have to, you know,20 years we may see that
previous equilibrium return.
The, the real threat now is canwe still have a fishery?
(11:10):
'cause there really aren't thatmany fishermen left.
ABIGAIL (11:12):
So, I mean, one of the things that was kind of
interesting that you talk aboutwas part of the overfishing
problem, if I understandcorrectly, was that you said
every lawyer and doctor had afishing boat at one point
because there was a tax freeexemption for the fisheries.
Can you talk a little bit aboutthat and you know, how that
(11:32):
plays into this whole paradigm?
BILL (11:36):
Sure.
The, so we, the United Statessort of.
Enforced.
Its territorial imperative, Itsaid, we're gonna set up a 200
mile limit.
'cause they get tired of fleetsof eastern block boats fishing
within three miles from shore.
And they didn't, you know, thesewere fleets, these were 250 foot
boats.
We had nothing like that in thiscountry.
Followed around by a 600 foot orbetter mothership.
(11:58):
And they'd line up and justvacuum the bottom.
You know, they'd line up boat toboat for 10 boats wide and just
go up and down a bought piece ofbottom and take everything they
could.
And the, the boats had, thefactory ships had, you know fish
meal plants on board.
So nothing went back over theside.
And they really began toseriously deplete the, the
(12:19):
ecosystem.
And, you know, we think of theocean as this giant place full
of fish.
And really it's a giant emptyaqueous desert with a few
hotspots.
And Georgia's Bank, Gulf ofMaine is one of them.
And it's a really specialecosystem.
Yeah.
So.
When we closed that, the stockstarted rebounding immediately
(12:39):
and the scientists saw it, andthe United States government
said, well, we've gotta, takeadvantage of that.
So they encourage investmentinto ground fishing, and it did
a lot of things.
It put a lot of shipyards towork and a lot of people to work
in shipyards.
It put more people to work onboats.
And so we built these fleets ofboats and they did it by making
them tax shelters.
There were like seven boatsnamed Sea Lion and there were a
(13:02):
bunch of other boats.
I knew some of the lawyers whoowned them, and they weren't
really in fishing.
They just, these were ways toshelter some money and to make
some money.
And so we had a lot of fleetsboats.
We had 2,500 boats at the, atthe high end of it, and the
average size was about 90 to ahundred feet.
There were fleets of 135footers, nothing like the
(13:22):
eastern block countries had, butwe had a, a significant fleet
and probably too much.
For the ecosystem.
ABIGAIL (13:29):
How do you go about managing these, these sort of
big questions?
You meant there are a few timesin your book where, you know,
good intended policy goes awry.
It's really hard to get thepolicy.
And, and constant for people.
What is that like, and how arewe doing today?
BILL (13:53):
Well, as far as the fish go, we're doing really well as
far as the fisheries go.
Not so much the, you know, andthen throw on climate change on
top of that, which is a thing.
And the species mix has changed,and that's part of the reason
that the species mix isdifferent.
So the interesting thing is, youclose an area.
(14:15):
Thinking that we'll close ittemporarily, and then it becomes
this sacrosanct area, which youcan never reopen because there
are groups of people thatweren't around at the beginning
of it.
And just assume that, you know,these are sacred grounds and we
can never reopen'em.
And, for some of that, that'sfine.
But at some point you have toleave some room for some kind of
fishing, sustainable fishing,sustainable harvesting.
(14:37):
And the fishermen that are leftare into that.
You know, they're more closelyrelated to environmentalists
than industrialists, and that'swho they are.
They're out in the water, theylive on the ocean.
They see the change in theclimate.
They see the natural worldbetter than most of us do.
And so that's part of it.
And, you know, we've had a lotof fits and starts.
(15:00):
And a lot of it has to do withthe fact that because of all the
restrictions we put in thestatistical models, we used to
assess fish stocks became veryinaccurate.
They were, they depended on.
Or were founded on sort of freerange, free plunder.
You can fish wherever you want,whenever you want, using any
gear you want, any time youwant.
(15:20):
And then any, you know, the, themesh size didn't matter.
Taking juveniles was okay.
Taking small fish was okay, andwe had too many boats to do
that.
And so that's part of the reasonthe stocks started to collapse.
So when you pair a fisherythat's unsustainable and, and
learning to be sustainable with,with a stock assessment, you
(15:42):
know, the population dynamicsgroup who lost their ability to
be accurate, they were producingstock assessments that were plus
or minus 40%.
And that's statisticallyuseless.
But the way the law is written,you have to use it.
And there was no penalty forthem or incentive for them to
stop doing it this way andbecome more accurate.
(16:03):
There's no penalty for beinginaccurate.
And so they've been putting outthis 40% plus or minus for.
Over 20 years.
And when they put that outthere, there's no wiggle room
for the fishermen.
There's no plus or minus there.
Here's the problem, here's whatyou have to do about it.
And to that point, nationalMarine Fishery Service and Woods
(16:23):
Hole, the Population DynamicsGroup actually inserted
themselves into management.
And the way that they wrote, thestock assessment advice not only
said, here's the stockassessment advice, but they're
also able to say, and here'swhat you're going to do about
it.
So they basically took theauthority out of the council's
hand out.
Out on the West Coast, scienceproduces a, a range of what they
(16:47):
call a risk table, and thenmanagers get to choose that.
But here on the East Coast, whathappens is there's a stock,
there's stock assessment adviceand, but it's not really advice.
It comes with, and this is whatmust happen.
And so.
When you're 40% inaccurate,telling people exactly how to do
(17:07):
things, it doesn't end well.
ABIGAIL (17:10):
Right.
Right, right.
And so peop the, the yields weremuch smaller than they needed to
be, it sounds like.
BILL (17:18):
Even by the, the sort of targeted landings that were put
in place according to this.
40% uncertain.
Here's what you have to do.
Advice we, let me put it to youlike this.
If you had a hundred thousandmetric tons of something in the
past, you could target 17% ofthose.
(17:38):
And if you didn't take more thanthat, the stock would keep up
with you because it's plus orminus 40, you're not sure if
it's 140 or 60.
So you always assume 60'causewe're precautionary.
And then that gives you about10% of that a hundred thousand.
But because they claim, well,we're not really sure that we
can assess landings correctly,they took another.
(17:59):
Buffer down, and we wereactually targeting 6% and we
don't catch 2%.
So last year, for instance, outof that very restrictive, very
precautionary approach, we left63 million pounds of fish in the
water, which we could haveharvested as a community in a
very sustainable manner.
And we've been doing that yearafter year for 20 years.
(18:22):
And the, in the past 20 years,we left over a billion pounds of
haddock in the water we couldhave taken.
Now, arguably, if we had takenall the fish that we could have
you know, maybe the landingsamounts that were allowed
would've gone down some.
But the bottom line is we'releaving a lot of fish in the
water and no threat.
You know, 2,500 boats when Istarted fishing, shrunk down to
(18:44):
less than 200, and the averagesize is about 50, not 90.
So the, the actual fishing poweris well reduced.
But if, if you talk to somepeople in the scientific
community, they're of the mindthat there's still this giant
fleet out there with the samecapacity.
It would be nice to see us come,you know, say take 40 million
pounds of that 60, we're leavingin the water.
(19:06):
That's real opportunity forpeople.
And it's not just jobs, it'slivelihoods and it's really
healthy food for people.
And it, I agree, it has to bemanaged sustainably.
ABIGAIL (19:15):
As a oyster farmer, I became very aware that there
were people who had fantasticintentions about the waterfront
in general, about promotingcertain ideas or regulating
certain ways.
And I felt sometimes like thosepeople weren't connected deeply
enough to the actual task thatthe fishermen, the lobstermen,
(19:38):
and the Aquacultures wereactually doing.
And so I felt like theintentions and the policy.
We're not aligned in the waythey should be.
And I felt that was like anundertone in your book that I
was, I was very grateful to hearbecause I think it's really hard
for people to talk about in anon angry way.
(19:58):
But I think you do it in areally thoughtful and
non-threatening way that isthat's very positive.
BILL (20:05):
Well, thank you.
And that, and that's a greatpoint and a great question.
There's a group of people outthere and especially younger
people that are in the wholeFinding Nemo mindset about
Fisher friends not food.
And if you watch a movie likethat, you notice that when they
get to the part where the, thefishing boat is in, in the
movie, everything gets darkerand everything, you know, the,
the, the sky gets darker and thefisher.
(20:29):
Yeah.
And, and, and then if you go tosome of the aquariums and you
walk around and you look at thelittle placards by each tank,
they're actually charactercaricatures on the tanks, making
fishermen look like thesebrutes.
And the truth is, you scratch afisherman underneath, you're
gonna find an environmentalistand a lot of these very
passionate young people that areout to save the planet, which is
(20:53):
a great idea and a great lifemission.
the bottom line is we have a lotmore in common as the fishing
community with the environmentalcommunity than most people
realize.
And we really ought to be allieson sustainable partnerships and
sustainable fishing.
We're, we're, you know, I agreethat food is a result of
(21:13):
something dying for most, almostall kinds of food.
And without food, something elseis gonna die.
And that would be you and me ifwe stopped eating in, in pretty
short order.
So it's a sacred thing.
And it, it has to be done withcare and it has to be
appreciated.
(21:34):
I like to say when I taught alot of weight servers and they
look at me cross-eyed, but Istart with, you know, food's a
sacred thing.
And that's because without foodyou die.
And for something to becomefood, it dies.
So every recipe needs a cup ofgratitude and, and a teaspoon of
reverence.
you know, this is why we saygrace.
Cultures have been saying grace.
(21:56):
I have three books on my shelfthat have different ways to say
grace, going back thousands ofyears, the humans that
understood how sacred food was.
And that's the approach thatneeds to happen when it comes to
fishing.
And I, I don't expect everybodyto, you know, bring religion out
there.
I just think you have to have anappreciation of how you're
managing a fishery.
(22:16):
And, and I think a lot offishermen get that.
When you watch those sunrisesand sunsets and you are, are
buffeted by the ocean and you,you have that connection to
nature.
I think you appreciate that andyou appreciate the fact that,
you know, you're not justslaughtering food, you're,
you're killing things to feedother people, and I took a lot
of pride in that, in feedingpeople.
ABIGAIL (22:37):
No, I think that work on the, on the water and, you
know, I don't know what it'slike to be at, at sea like that.
I can only imagine you're outthere and you can't see land for
a few days.
I've never had that experience,but even just working.
In the Scarborough Marsh was,was, was somewhat
transcendental.
So I get, and that comes acrossin your book, the sort of
spiritual connection to, to thefish and the crew and the and
(23:01):
the food you're preparing.
Before we get there, I wanna askyou a little bit about
aquaculture.
How does aquaculture fit intothis fish paradigm?
What role does it play and, andwhat are your thoughts on it?
BILL (23:16):
Well, first of all, good on you for being in the
aquaculture biz'cause it's, asyou found out, it's not easy.
It's hard physical and kind ofdirty work and it, but it's also
very rewarding.
And if, if I was a 20 somethingjust starting out on the deck of
a fishing boat or a lobsterboat, I'd be looking to get an
(23:39):
aquaculture lease too.
Because one of the things Ilearned early on at fishing was
that the fishermen would say,fish got tails.
And it doesn't just mean thatthey're gonna.
Swim'em away from you and youhave to hunt them.
It means that some years fishthat you've been depending upon
aren't available.
And you have to be flexible.
You have to be able to work outa different ports.
You have to be able to work ondifferent fisheries.
(24:00):
Unfortunately a lot of us havegotten boxed in by National
Marine Fishery Service, so it'snot as easy to transition from
one to the other.
But water skills are waterskills, whether you're working
on a flat bottom, oyster boat orout in the ocean on a distant
water boat, and they translatepretty easily from one form to
another.
And that kind of skillset andthat kind of human capital is
(24:23):
really important not just to theworld, but to feed people.
And so I, I love the fact thatAquaculture's becoming more of a
thing in Maine, that one of thepositive things of the water
warming in Maine, if you can seethat, although if it gets too
warm, it's not gonna be positiveanymore, is the fact that
shellfish grows so much fasteralong the coast of Maine.
(24:46):
So don't the predators likegreen crabs, but oyster farming
is a thing and Maine has some ofthe best tasting oysters in the
world.
You know, I, I, I can talk aboutthat in a minute, but the ROIs
that's available in places likeCasco Bay and the DeMarco River
is on par or better than anythat I've s I've, you know, had
(25:09):
from any place else I've evereaten an oyster.
ABIGAIL (25:12):
Yeah, I have a, a French uncle who has been oyster
obsessed since his youth inFrance, and when he first came
to, to Maine where now he liveswith my aunt.
He, he was a little bitsuspicious of these Maine
oysters that weren't, you know,ocean grown.
They tended to be grown inestuaries or, you know, salty
rivers and, and, and inlets.
(25:35):
And now he can't go back toFrench oysters because they
don't have the complexity.
They don't have that nuance thatMaine oysters have.
So, that's just one of manypeople who've been convinced of
the superiority of the Maineoyster, sorry to everybody else
listening to this podcast fromoutside of Maine.
But even Finfish aquaculture,like that's there, there are
(25:55):
some new finfish aquacultureplants that are being built.
Aquaculture got a really badwrap and it's really hard to
dispel that even among familymembers of mine that won't buy
anything farm raised.
And I'm like, you wanna, like,farm raised is good now.
Can you talk about that?
BILL (26:18):
Yeah, that mindset.
'cause I, I speak to a lot ofpeople and not just, you know,
when I'm doing book talks atlibraries and community centers
and things like that, but in myformer career, I'd speak to a
lot of chefs.
We did a fish school.
I have like 16 chefs in a roomfour times a year.
And one of the talks was aboutsustainability.
(26:38):
And if you, I'd always ask dohow many people in the room when
I hear they hear the term farmfish, know somewhere in the back
of their mind.
There's something wrong withthat.
And almost every hand goes up.
And I'd say, congratulations,you've been successfully
marketed to.
And what happened was, you know,I worked for Foley Fish for 35
years, and they were founded in1906, and I started with'em in
(27:01):
1986.
And for the first 75 years or soof their existence, you could
only buy wild salmon becausethat's all that was available.
And it was available you know,in a limited time during the
season, which is great.
The fish was very inconsistent.
One box would be beautiful, thenext would be rancid.
(27:22):
And then.
You know, the season ended,there was no more available.
So that's, the chef used it.
Well, then the Norwegians showedup in the eighties with this
farm raise fish, and every fishwas still in rigor.
And it was available year round.
And when you opened a box, youdidn't smell fish, you smelled
cucumbers or watermelons.
It had this really pleasantaroma and the taste was great
(27:45):
and it had the right fatcontent.
So in their haste to meet theman, the farmers made a lot of
mistakes.
And meanwhile, the wild salmonindustry just lost the market
completely.
They, their market was canneriesand that was it.
And they were getting 50 cents apound and then nobody wanted
wild salmon in a restaurantanymore, because you could get
(28:07):
the, the farm 12 months, a year.
No, never a mistake.
Always tasted great, steadyprice, steady availability, and
the farmers.
Would put as many fish as theycould in a pen and feed like
crazy and put as many pens asthey could in the site, as many
sites in a bay.
And as soon as a pen was empty,they reintroduce new fish.
(28:28):
And all these husbandrypractices were bad.
It was like, you know, if you'regonna raise pork or chicken or
beef and not pay attention tohusbandry, you're going to not
only have a lot of problems,you're not gonna make any money.
Which is exactly what happenedto the farmers.
So Alaska seafood marketinginitially tried slamming farm
salmon themselves and nobodypaid attention'cause you're just
(28:49):
running down a competitor.
So they gathered up theinformation, the poor husbandry
choices that farms made, whichthey had corrected by the way,
but, and became sustainable.
They, they collected all those,put'em in, in a, like a dossier
and handed them off to the NGOs.
And this happened to be in theearly nineties, about the same
(29:10):
time as cable news was takingoff.
So here you have a, an entitythat needs content.
24 7, 365 and you have a groupof NGOs that need funding and
anything they can speak about orchampion generally brings them
in some funding.
And, and it's not just thatthey, they wanna fight for
what's good in the world and theway things ought to be.
(29:32):
And I support that.
But it's also about funding.
'cause you can't survive withoutfunding.
So they held news conferences,the cable news showed up and
they used the marketing thatAlaska Seafood marketing handed
off to'em.
And Ray Reta, the executivedirector, admitted this, said we
couldn't slam'em ourselves, butwe could hand it off to a third
(29:53):
party.
And it was very successful.
So, and I noticed it because themarketing quote, you know, the,
the news or really marketingshowed up about three months
before the wild season everyyear like clockwork.
So it wouldn't happen in, youknow, Christmas time.
It, it would happen in March,you know, February, March.
Oh, farm salmon does this andfarm salmon does that and, and
(30:17):
all, you know, I could, it's along story and I could go on for
a while, but, but basically theend result was we went from only
selling wild as a company.
'cause that's all you could getto only selling farm.
'cause nobody wanted a wildanymore.
All of a sudden we're sellingboast.
But not only that, the firstCopper River Kings helicoptered
off the district.
'cause that's where they'recaught outside the river, not in
(30:37):
it.
The first Thursday after May15th, you know, to awaiting
Alaska airline jet showed up inBoston and we're commanding$25 a
pound for the whole fish, whichwas like$60 a pound for filets,
which is ridiculous.
So we were selling both and notonly, you know, then the
customers would march into arestaurant and chew out the
server and chew out the managerand chew out the chef for using
(31:00):
this evil farm raised salmonwhen it really wasn't the case.
And I'm, you know, I'm out thereat that time.
Training servers is part of myjob.
And I couldn't tell'em thatstory or I tell'em that story
and say, you can't walk up to atable when you've got five other
tables working
ABIGAIL (31:17):
right.
BILL (31:18):
hustling around and, and, and engage in this conversation.
You've got work to do.
Just say, you know, we, andbesides, I feel like sometimes
Americans like to get their newsoff a bumper sticker, so I gave
'em a bumper sticker, which wasour salmon is, is sustainably
farm raised and specially fed.
And that's all you can do.
And if they choose not to haveit, you know, don't get in an
(31:39):
argument, the customer's alwaysright.
But it, the, the sad thing wasit poisoned the American psyche
for all kinds of farm fish.
You know, I know it's kind of along, drawn out story, but
that's what happened.
I, there are places like Chilewhere they still have issues
because industry runs governmentinstead of government regulating
industry.
(31:59):
And when you have thosesituations, it doesn't always
end well.
But, you know, places likeCanada and Ireland and Scotland.
Are very careful on, on how thecompanies themselves use a
couple different the AquacultureStewardship Council and best
Aquaculture practices, which areauditing companies.
So they have to pay money to,but they have to also meet
(32:21):
pretty strict standards to meetthose.
So you look for those seals ofapproval and, and feel
comfortable and confident aboutthe Fisher eating
ABIGAIL (32:29):
It's interesting how you know.
We're not fishing enough, we'refishing too much.
We stop, we overregulate, welike the pendulum.
You know, we only eat wild fish,then we only eat farm fish and,
and then we don't wanna eat farmfish.
The pendulum in the, in thewhole fishing industry, from one
end to the, of it to the other,just seems to swing at these
(32:52):
huge, huge gyrations.
And it would be nice if it werekind of just more in the middle,
ticking back and forth,
BILL (33:01):
well.
I think the word human is neverassociated with the word
perfection.
So, and that's who we are as youknow, my mother, people talk
about, oh, the world isterrible.
Guess what?
The world's always beenterrible.
My mom explained that to me at avery young age.
She said, I grew up during theGreat Depression, and then we
(33:22):
had Hitler and Stalin and, andthe the Iron Curtain and, and
you know, and pick up a historybook and go back.
The world's always been aterrible place.
Don't let that stop you frombeing a good person or finding a
calling and, and throwingyourself into something that you
feel is good and wholesome inhelping other people.
Just, you can't focus on thatstuff.
It's, it's better to shut thenews off'cause you're not really
(33:43):
learning anything.
ABIGAIL (33:45):
that sounds like good advice.
In addition to your fishingduties on these fishing boats,
you were really trying to raisethe bar in terms of fish quality
so that the fish smelled likecucumber and and beautiful
things and not like fish.
Three times in your book yousay, don't fish shouldn't smell
fishy, which I appreciate.
Tell us a little bit, tell theconsumer, like what, what kinds
(34:08):
of fish should we be buying?
What should we be doing with it?
How should we be keeping it?
Give us some practical advicefrom a guy who knows a lot about
that
BILL (34:19):
it's possible I put that in there three times by
accident, but it's also possibleI put that in there three times
because that's how we used toteach.
Tell'em what you're gonna tell'em.
Tell'em, tell'em what you toldthem.
So I'm actually re subbing thebook and I'll add the line.
Are you paying attention yet?
But fresh fish?
You know, bad meat smells,rancid, bad milk smells sour.
(34:41):
When fish goes bad, we say it'sfishy.
And, and that just illustrateshow perishable fish is because
we don't refer to anything elseas itself when we're talking
about it not being good.
Meat's not meaty when it's bad.
Milk's not milky when it's bad.
Cheese isn't cheesy, peoplecould be cheesy, but the the
fresh fish shouldn't have afishy odor.
(35:04):
And if it, the, the spoilagebacteria work on it so quickly
because it's the most perishableof the proteins.
And I don't understand theentire biology, but I did
understand how fish spoiled.
So the, the, the keys are this,if you walk into a fish market
and all you can smell is, isfishy, then that's probably not
(35:25):
your fish market.
I worked in fish plants twodifferent fish plants owned by
Foley.
And we cut millions of pounds offish in a year.
And you could never smell fishthere.
Not even in the parking lot, youknow, we cleaned our parking
lot.
It's about keeping things clean.
It's about keeping things cold.
Don't let the bacteria have achance to thrive.
And at between 28 and 32degrees, the bacteria can't
(35:47):
work.
It's there.
It doesn't die, but it doesn'twork.
It doesn't grow.
And that doesn't produce thatthat nitrogen smell.
That's the fishy odor.
So start with that cold isimportant.
You want to keep your fishcovered so that it doesn't get
dried out by the air.
'cause the moisture is theflavor you want to use.
Very short cooking times andlots of heat.
(36:08):
So we used to save 450 degreespreheated oven per and a 10
minutes per inch of thickness.
And that's it.
People say I have to beconfident to cook fish.
No.
Cooking fish gives youconfidence.
It's so easy to cook.
My mom used to cook stuff for 30minutes and it would dry it out
and it smelled up the kitchen.
And that's because back in thosedays, nobody knew what fish was.
(36:31):
And we all hated it.
And I don't blame people forhating it.
We don't eat rancid meat.
We don't drink sour milk.
So start with if you're in arestaurant and you smell fish,
don't order it.
If you're in a fish marketthat's not yours.
If they, if it smells fishy andif they'll let you take a whiff
of it, you know, just before youbuy it, but you're looking for
translucent as opposed tochalky, you're looking for a
(36:52):
bright sort of glossy fish.
There's other things thatinvolve, but, you know, as far
as chemicals added, which makesit almost look too good.
But for the most part, if youcan get natural fish, then when
you on the way home, don't putit, throw it in the back seat,
keep it in a cooler with someice.
And if you're not gonna eat itthat night.
(37:12):
You know, you don't wanna putthe fish in ice and have the ice
melting on it, but you want tohave the container that it's in
under some ice in the backcorner of your fridge and just
keep it cold.
I'll also kind of use gel packson top of the, you know, so that
they, they keep the fish cold.
So if I don't have ice handy,but the bottom line is if you're
gonna cook it today, fine.
(37:32):
If you're not, keep it about asclose to 30, between 28 and 32.
'cause ocean fish won't freezeuntil below 28.
So keep it fresh.
And then when you cook it, youknow, bring it out, portion it
up, it likes a good, you know,pan sear.
So you get caramelization.
It likes butter.
It likes a lot of heat in shortcooking times and medium rare is
(37:54):
the way to go.
You can always cook it somemore.
But medium rare fish has such apleasant flavor and it's nothing
to be afraid of.
ABIGAIL (38:02):
Should you ever wash fish?
BILL (38:06):
You can rinse off a whole fish and rinse the belly of a
whole fish if it's bleeding.
And that's a good idea.
But if, if you're talking aboutfilets, no because the water
will go inside the cells of thefish through osmosis and change
the flavor.
So it's a bad idea to wash fish.
I've seen restaurants where theyhave fish soaking in the sink
'cause it's thawing out and it'slike, well, nobody's gonna enjoy
(38:28):
that, but they probably don'tsell much fish here, which is
why they have to pull it out thefreezer in the first place.
Bad fish leads to fewer sales,fewer sales leads to bad fish.
So fish is an intentional thingif you're gonna cook it, if
you're gonna serve it.
All those things, you reallyhave to pay attention.
ABIGAIL (38:44):
I can't wait to try your recipes, which are
hilarious because they're suchdude's recipes.
I love the way you give them.
They're simple.
There's no measuring.
They're so un fussy.
It's just you feel this reallyvisceral connection with that
food you're making.
It's just a beautiful, beautifulrecipe.
(39:06):
I want a whole recipe book likethat.
It's how I prefer to cook.
I don't like to worry aboutteaspoons.
So for the client who wants togo buy something and be
sustainable and is, are theresome decisions when you're in
the fish market that are moresustainable than others?
BILL (39:23):
the, you know, haddock, believe it or not, the stock is
huge and it's very sustainable.
And if you can find a fishmarket that, and that's bottom
from a fishermen and both of'emknow what they're doing, that's
great.
And you can do so many thingsbesides cover'em.
And Ritz Cracker comes and bake'em, which is terrific.
But, you know, the skin onhaddock really fresh, Sears up
nice and crispy and is, is, ifit's a fresh fish, is a tastiest
(39:46):
thing.
Tastiest part of it.
The, you know, a lot of the I, Ilove, they call it fluke or, or
summer a summer flounder, whichis a great fish, which you can,
you know, if you get a sushigrade where they actually,
they're bled before they'redressed, they, they you can eat
those, you know, make a cevicheout of those.
(40:06):
So those are a couple of myfaves, but I also love
swordfish, which is verysustainably harvested fish in
spite of the Gibb Swordfish.
A break campaign, which is kindof a.
A bogus thing.
Tuna fish, you know, bluefin,harvested right now is, is being
done sustainably.
And carefully.
And you know, it's interesting.
We, we were dealing with we hadtwo on the highly migratory
(40:29):
species.
We had two, we had all thesesessions and we, they broke out
on different kinds of speciesand there were two on bluefin
back to back.
The first one was whether or notwe should up list it.
That's a nice sounding word,isn't it?
Up list it.
What it means is, should wethrow it on the, the endangered
species list and ban it frombeing, so we're, we're talking
about that and everybody knew itwas kind of like a ridiculous
(40:51):
discussion.
And then the second one was,well, the Mediterranean fishery
finally got their act togetherand stopped over harvesting.
And we've got a thousand metrictons.
We can take just a thousand onthe whole East coast of the
United States that split upbetween all the states that the
fish passes by.
And because we're gonna see somany more fish, how are we gonna
(41:11):
keep from over harvesting?
So the, the juxtaposition of isthis endangered to, there's so
many, we may over harvest oursustainable quota.
How are we having both thoseconversations at the same time?
But so things like tuna fish aregood.
They, they're very few species.
If it's in endangered, not onlycan't you eat it legally, you
(41:32):
can't accidentally kill it.
You, you know, if riding yourbike down the street endangered
a, a species that was on the, onthe list, then riding down your
bike down the street would beillegal.
That's how strict the law is.
And other entities have createdtheir own endangered species
list, which aren't really the USendangered species list.
And they say, well, these areendangered according to our
(41:54):
standards.
But the bottom line is you canalso eat things like, I dunno,
mackerel or very good fishhaddock is one of my favorites.
Ha is a great fish.
There's a lot of the gulf fish.
People ask me what my favoritefish is.
It's hard for me to.
Nail myself down on it becausethere's so many fish out there.
You can do so many things with'em.
(42:14):
And it's not like, you know, 20different cuts of the same
critter.
It's all these different speciesthat are so different and so
tasty and so easy to cook.
ABIGAIL (42:24):
making me hungry.
What do you, what impact wouldyou like to have with this book?
BILL (42:31):
well, I heard the phrase don't write a book to get rich.
Write a book to connect withpeople you'll never meet.
And I'm kind of leaning in thatdirection.
I, you know, it's, I, I bumpinto people who have actually
read it.
And, you know, it was inManhattan last weekend and a
bookseller called Three Liveshad three copies, which I sent
(42:52):
them.
I said, don't send'em back.
I, I don't wanna get paid for'em.
And they said, usually we throwbooks like this in the bin, but
we read it, we loved it, and wesold it.
And I was walking on the air forthe rest of the day.
And so those kind of experiencesare what I'm looking for.
I'm having a lot of fun talkingto people, connecting with
people.
I donate to libraries everywhereI go.
(43:14):
Being self-published, you'rekind of at the bottom of the
literary barrel, but you canstill see the stars from there.
So I'm out there talking topeople who are listening at a
great time on Shabi Island acouple weeks ago and 30 people
showed up and paid the, thelibrary support fund, 10 bucks a
piece.
And we talked about fish and Ibrought fish and we ate fish.
(43:35):
And I've decided that in thefuture, as many times as
possible, I'm gonna bring fishwith me and serve it whether I
can do it at a restaurant.
So they have to, you know,they'll pay for it and charge
for it.
Or I can bring some snacksmyself, I was at the Booth Bay
Region Public Library.
Last week and we had crab, macand cheese and, and some
scallops with a dot of pesto.
(43:56):
So there's so many differentways to eat fish and people when
they, when they love thestories, but I think they like
the fish better.
ABIGAIL (44:07):
I don't know, bill, I, I honestly was blown away by
your ability to tell a storyAbsolutely blown away.
And not that I'm any greatliterary critic or anything,
but, but I did study comp lit asan undergraduate.
I read a lot of books.
It was a really, really wellturned story.
(44:27):
And I think that's what bringsthis all home in such a
beautiful way, is that you havethis incredible breadth of
experience, this passion for,you know, raising the bar in the
industry on every level, butthis and this love for cooking
the fish.
And, but you have this powerfulway of communicating it.
(44:47):
And and I think that makes thisa really, really special
opportunity, not just for you,but also for the readers.
Anybody who's interested in thewaterfront should take a, take
this home with them and give ita read.
BILL (44:58):
My advice for authors is write what comes to you.
'cause I tried to write a, youknow, the book is kind of a
chronology.
It starts when I was lobsteringback in 1980 and walked it
through my career on thewaterfront.
But I didn't, I didn't write itthat way.
I tried writing it that way andI rewrite, reread the, the stuff
I was writing and I was reallydisappointed with it.
(45:21):
I was like, who would read this?
So I put it down for a fewmonths and then a story came to
me and I said, oh, I'll writethat.
And so I started, I just wrote astory and it had nothing to do
with any timeline.
It was just something thathappened like five years ago.
Or 10 years ago, or 20 yearsago, or a couple weeks ago.
And I, I started writing thoseas they came to me.
(45:41):
And then I felt the sort ofstory come to me.
And once I, and I have a brotherwho's a, who's a author, and he
fills the internet with content.
But he was rereading some of mywriting and helping edit it.
But he didn't do a whole lot ofediting.
He just kept telling me, this isgood, bill.
I hope you think it's good.
And when I had enough together,I kind of sat down.
(46:03):
And then I organized ISDA alongthe timeline.
And that's why there's a chaptercalled Bycatch.
'cause there were a number ofstories that really didn't fit
anywhere else.
So I just threw'em all together.
'cause I thought they were goodstories, but maybe belonged in
some kind of offhand fashion.
ABIGAIL (46:20):
So you know, what is your hope for the working
waterfront?
I mean, where do you see itgoing and, you know, how is this
gonna play out from here?
BILL (46:31):
There's a lot of opportunity, not just ground
fishing and, and fishing ingeneral because in the United
States we're serious aboutmanaging our fisheries and we
have control of the water withinthe 200 mile limit, but, but the
bottom line is there's a lot offish that could be sustainably
harvested.
So, and there's a lot of,there's fishermen that know how
to do it.
(46:52):
We need support from science andthere's a way forward with that
using ai.
And instead of this statisticalmodeling that gathers data from
landings and, and some surveycruises where they're using the
net, that's too small for theboat that's being fishing,
that's using it.
There's some guys in UMassDartmouth that are towing a net
(47:12):
with cameras and lights and theopen co end, and they can tow it
for 20 plus hours straight.
And so it's making a video, butit's not a, not a video, it's a
digital data stream.
And because it's a digitalvideo, ai, which is much better
than it was 10 years ago whenthey started developing this,
can watch it.
(47:33):
And this, because it's a digitaldata stream, it's also connected
to a GPS and a and a clock.
So it's geo located intimestamped and it's got images
of all these fish going throughit.
And the AI is being taught howto watch the video, identify the
different kinds of species andnot just what they are, what's
(47:57):
what approximate age they are,what size they are, so it can
estimate your classes.
And then.
S you know, indicate where itwas seen and when it was seen,
and how many of'em, this is astatistician's dream and right
now Woods Hole is very muchstuck to the old way of doing
it.
The, you know, the virtualpopulation analysis, which is
(48:19):
producing these 40% plus orminus stock assessments, which
are useless when they can getback to where they used to be,
which was two to 3%.
You know, we used to have themost accurate stock assessments
in the world.
Get back there by going forward,not by going back.
And, and because of that, wecan, you know, there's
opportunities for fishing and,and until that happens, it's
(48:42):
gonna be difficult to open upfishing again.
Then the second thing is.
You know, you pair that withAgricul and, and people, that,
young people that actually wantto get out and work in this kind
of environment and be involvedin something that's, you know,
I, I meet a lot of young oysterfarmers and they're very
passionate about sustainabilityand, and as a retired person, I
(49:02):
have to say, the best thing youcan do with your life when you
retire is find a way to workwith young people.
Young people are uniquelyqualified to inhabit the time
and space that they're in, andit's their world they're coming
into.
So, you know, I know I'm talkinga lot, but when I'm with young
people, I do this
ABIGAIL (49:19):
Hmm.
BILL (49:20):
because they don't want to hear your stories.
They want to see you do somestuff, which they'll happily
learn from.
But, you know, I think there'sgreat opportunities and I think
that we have to be intentionalabout how we do it.
I think this is the best time inhistory to be alive.
And people ask me why.
I said, well, let's start withcraft beer.
But, but there's movements likethe Billion Oyster Project and,
(49:43):
and the you know, organicfarming initiatives that are all
over the place and all clams ondeck down in Florida where
they're trying to, addresilience and reinvigorate the,
the coastline there.
There, there's a lot of thingsgoing on where people are paying
attention to this.
Opportunities there.
It's just a matter of there,there's plenty of people that
are looking for opportunity, andall I can say is if you choose
(50:06):
this life on the waterfront andon the water prepare to be
grateful to yourself that youdid.
ABIGAIL (50:13):
Oh, I think we should just end there.
That was beautiful.
And I have to say I, I am a, abetter and different person from
my, for my 10 years as a oysterfarmer.
That shaped me in a veryprofound way.
So I agree with you.
Thank you so much, bill, forcoming on, and congratulations
on a really great book and soglad to reconnect with you.
BILL (50:36):
Thank you.
Yeah.
Stay in touch.
And yeah I, I'm really honoredto be on your podcast and, and
at some point my brother.
Who's been helping me says,bill, you, you need to do a
podcast someday.
I'm gonna do the audio bookfirst, but then I'm gonna look
into some podcasting in thefuture.
ABIGAIL (50:52):
great.
Well, I can't wait to hear it.
BILL (50:55):
all right, my friend.
Take care.
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